Consumers in the Maritimes like Heather Lindsay say their shopping and eating habits have changed ‘drastically’ as prices continue to rise.
“If it’s not on sale, I usually don’t end up buying it … because I just can’t afford it,” she says. “It’s mostly whatever I can find on sale. Except for my puppy, haha, he gets the top of everything.”
Lindsay, a senior citizen living on a pension, agreed to talk with Global News before and after she went to get groceries in Halifax Tuesday.
She says she has about $300 left to spend on groceries per month after paying rent, power and water.
But Tuesday alone, she spent about 15 per cent of that on two items: “Forty-six bucks for a four-litre of milk and a bag of dog food for him,” she says.
Many people are noticing the higher prices.
“I have to make choices,” says Olivia March, another shopper in Halifax. “I definitely have to make choices and maybe perhaps amounts of items; I maybe only buy what I really, really need.”
And it’s not just food. Higher housing and gas costs also mean more difficult decisions for Maritimers.
Statistics Canada says annual inflation rose to 5.1 per cent in January, reaching a 30-year high.
The Food Depot Alimentaire in Moncton services 60-plus food banks and shelters in New Brunswick. Dale Hicks, the Food Depot’s president, says more people started relying on food banks after CERB ended. And it’s getting worse.
“A lot of people perhaps that were on low incomes were able to make ends meet at one point,” Hicks says, “but now that’s becoming more difficult and so they’re starting to turn to the food banks.”
Grocery prices increased higher than overall inflation; up 6.5 per cent compared to 2021, marking the largest yearly increase since 2009.
“For a family of four, it means that the family would need to spend $1,000 more on food over the next 12 months, so it’s quite significant,” says Sylvain Charlebois, the director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab.
Charlebois says inflation is expected to hit 7 per cent before year-end.
Four-in-five Canadians are changing their grocery buying habits, according to an Angus Reid report released Tuesday. Of 1,622 people surveyed, 56 per cent of Atlantic Canadian respondents say it’s “difficult to feed their household,” according to the report.
“It’s very, very scary,” Lindsay says, “very scary.”
Forty-six per cent of people who took part, which represents nearly 750 people, say they’re switching to cheaper brands.
Charlebois says prices will start coming down, but “probably not until the latter part of 2022.”
“Things are really messy right now across the world and so supply chains are highly unreliable, so until things calm down — whether it’s on water or on land — we’re still looking at a rocky situation,” he says.
He says COVID’s impact on the supply chain and the ongoing labour shortages combine for one factor, while another reason is the higher price of commodities.
“If you’re manufacturing food, if you’re making food, you’re paying more for your inputs,” Charlebois says.
He warns the Russia-Ukraine conflict is not helping when it comes to oil prices and, eventually, costs for wheat, corn and soybeans.